though it may be doubted if the tea ever saw China; if like much of that drunk about the country, it was probably of farm growth also.
While we were talking over these matters, and others of a more personal nature, with our gentle old hostess, several visitors arrived;—probably, on this occasion, they came less to see the mistress of the house than her carriage-load of strange company. Be that as it may, we had the pleasure of making several new acquaintances, and of admiring some very handsome strings of gold beads about their necks; a piece of finery we had not seen in a long while. Another fashion was less pleasing. We observed that a number of the women in that neighborhood had their hair cropped short like men, a custom which seems all but unnatural. Despite her seventy years and the rheumatism, our hostess had her dark hair smoothly combed and neatly rolled up under a nice muslin cap, made after the Methodist pattern. She was not one to do anything unwomanly, though all B—— Green set the fashion.
A grand-daughter of our hostess, on a visit at the farm, had been in the meadow picking strawberries, and now returned with a fine bowl full, the ripest and largest in the field. The table was set; a homespun table-cloth, white as snow, laid upon it, and every vacant spot being covered by something nice, at four o'clock we sat down to tea. Why is it that cream, milk, and butter always taste better under the roof of a farm-house than elsewhere? They seem to lose something of their peculiar sweetness and richness after passing the bounds of the farm, especially if they have been rattled over the pavement of a large town to market. Country-made bread, too, is peculiar; not so light, per-
